5 research outputs found
Nam-Shub versus the Big Other: Revising the Language that Binds Us in Philip K. Dick, Neal Stephenson, Samuel R. Delany, and Chuck Palahniuk
Within the science fiction genre, utopian as well as dystopian experiments have found equal representation. This balanced treatment of two diametrically opposed social constructs results from a focus on the future for which this particular genre is well known. Philip K. Dickâs VALIS, Neal Stephensonâs Snow Crash, Samuel R. Delanyâs Babel-17, and Chuck Palahniukâs Lullaby, more aptly characterized as speculative fiction because of its use of magic against scientific social subjugation, each tackle dystopian qualities of contemporary society by analyzing the power that language possesses in the formation of the self and propagation of ideology. The utopian goals of these texts advocate for a return to the modernist metanarrative and a revision of postmodern cynicism because the authors look to the future for hopeful solutions to the social and ideological problems of today. Using Slavoj Ĺ˝iĹžekâs readings of Jacques Lacan and Theodor Adornoâs readings of Karl Marx for critical insight, I argue these four novels imagine language as the key to personal empowerment and social change. While not all of the novels achieve their utopian goals, they each evince a belief that the attempt belies a return to the modernist metanarrative and a rejection of postmodern helplessness. Thus, each novel imagines the revision of Ĺ˝iĹžekâs big Other through the remainders of Adornoâs inevitably failed revolutions, injecting hope in a literary period that had long since lost it
The rhetoric of reportage: The media construction of a pandemic
In disease outbreak situations, the media are considered (and relied upon) by authorities to âtranslateâ information across disciplinary boundaries. A reporter covering the 2003 SARS outbreak observed that journalists âare often conscious of their role as participants in a human crisisâ (World Health Organization). Consequently, a pandemic presents a unique rhetorical situation to journalists. As significant intermediaries in public health messaging, journalist-rhetors help frame the narrative of a disease outbreak for lay audiences and influence whether those audiences implement protective behavioral changes. While the literature implicitly acknowledges issues of motivation in the media industry as a whole, little work has yet appeared to examine strategies specific to individual acts of reportage.
Through comparative analyses of media portrayals of the 2009 H1N1 influenza outbreak before the nature of the threat became clear, this project explores rhetorical characteristics of the coverage in order to uncover implicit assumptions guiding public understanding of a high-risk health threat. Kenneth Burkeâs method of cluster analysis yields insight into the symbolic processes embedded in a rhetorical artefact, enabling an interpretation of the rhetorâs worldview. Resulting worldviews can then be examined through a dramatistic lens. Burke also described the strategic adoption of âroleâ as an element of symbolic action.
This study found that journalists purveyed widely different, even contradictory, worldviews, each with different impacts on audiences in terms of the interpretation and appropriate response to the threat. I argue that such divergences occur due to alienation arising from individual ethos in conflict with formal constraints in the new pandemic âscene.â Responses to alienation manifested in identifiably distinct roles. Identification with a particular role in pandemic reportage was reflected in the terminology of journalists studied. Through clusters of association and dissociation, journalists classed the threat as âmildâ and rejected the term âpandemic,â as a serious threat but one that could be managed, or as an apocalyptic threat against which there was no defence, with all stances occurring simultaneously in time. Ramifications for the lay public ranged from the location of protection with public health officials, invitations to engage in processes of Othering, or the amplification of the cataclysmic nature of the scene. As these stances differed in their portrayals of impacts on the lay public and thus ability to motivate behavioral change, an improved understanding of journalistic experience in the pandemic âsceneâ is crucial to improving communication aiming to protect the health of lay publics
Making of British India fictions, 1772-1823
This thesis investigates British fictional representations of India in novels,
plays and poetry from 1772 to 1823. Rather than simply correlating literary portrayals
to shifting colonial context and binary power relationships, the project relates
representations to the impact of India on British popular culture, and print
capitalismâs role in defining and promulgating national identity and proto-global
awareness. The study contends that the internal historical development of the literary
modes â the stage play, the novel and verse â as well as consumer expectations, were
hugely influential in shaping fictional portrayals of the subcontinent. In addition, it
argues that the literary representations of India were contingent upon authorsâ gender,
class and their lived or lack of lived experience in the subcontinent.
The project seeks to use literary texts as case studies to explore the growing
commoditisation of culture, the developing literary marketplace and an emerging
sense of national identity. The thesis proposes that the aforementioned discourses and
anxieties are embodied within the very literary forms of British India narratives. In
addition, it seeks to determine shifts in how Britainâs relationship with the
subcontinent was imagined and how events in colonial India were perceived by the
general public. Furthermore, the project utilises literary texts as sites to explore the
discursive and epistemological strategies that Britons engaged in to either justify or
confront their countryâs role as a colonising nation
Wordlings in a Web 2.0 world
Public language has become impoverished by âmanagerialismâ, often reducing it to strings of âweaselâ words, a phenomenon blamed on the information society. This process is not as ubiquitous or as inevitable as often represented, however. Drawing on Burkeâs notion of human beings as âwordlingsâ, I argue for the centrality of well-crafted words, especially on the internet, and offer examples of language crafted with care and passion, leading to distilled and vivid expression. I use the term âword bytesâ for such language, as it can cut through the multiple items of information from many other media by which it is surrounded, and demand to be noticed and remembered. I conclude we do not have to accept the impoverished form of âmanagerialâ English, often produced by elites and used to justify the âfinancialisationâ of the late capitalist world. We can begin to counter it by our own practices of using words with care and passion, and by disseminating our words. We can also stop and question âweaselâ language wherever we encounter it